Several different types of processing operations (e.g., thin film deposition operations) rely on a precise delivery of a gas to a processing environment (e.g., a plasma processing environment). As the dimensions of the structures that are fabricated continue to diminish in size, the precision of the mass flow rate of the gas continues to increase in importance.
One approach to delivering a processing gas species to a process environment includes using a vaporizer to vaporize a source substance into a specific type of gas that is desired in the process environment. A pressurized carrier gas is then utilized to force the desired, processing gas to the process environment, but mixing the carrier gas with the processing gas results in two known gases in the gas stream, and problematically, the concentration of the processing gas is difficult to determine.